Susan Hill, Mestag CEO

J&J, GV back a new sin­gle-cell ap­proach for tack­ling in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases and hack­ing the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment

Most biotechs try­ing to tack­le in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­or­ders like IBD or at­tempt­ing to boost the po­ten­cy of im­munother­a­pies for can­cer have fo­cused, log­i­cal­ly, on tar­get­ing, block­ing or redi­rect­ing im­mune cells.

J&J, GV and North­pond Ven­tures, though, are back­ing a com­pa­ny with a dif­fer­ent ap­proach, seed­ing UK-based Mestag Ther­a­peu­tics with $45 mil­lion to ex­plore whether drug­ging fi­brob­lasts — the cells that cre­ate and form the body’s con­nec­tive tis­sue — can help get at the un­der­ly­ing mech­a­nisms that let tu­mors evade the im­mune sys­tems and keep pa­tients with dis­eases like IBD in a con­stant state of in­flam­ma­tion.

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